Minnesota Wild: 2018-19 Season Preview of Mike Liambas

In July the Minnesota Wild signed forward Mike Liambas to a 1 year contract that went under the radar at the time. He currently does not appear to be assigned a jersey number, so we’ve got a bonus player preview with 5 days left until preseason!

The Mike Liambas signing went under the radar at the time, as he was not even listed on the Minnesota Wild roster page until more recently. Liambas has had an extremely controversial career, and is a very surprising signing for the Wild.

History

Liambas started his career in the Ontario Hockey League in 2006-07, immediately establishing himself as a team player that will hit and hit hard. He finished his rookie season with 5 points and 169 Penalty Minutes, and then duplicated those numbers in his second year, before missing his 3rd junior season for hip surgery.

His final year of junior hockey was where the controversy started, as he was suspended the entire season after a hit in October that fractured a player’s skull and face, leaving him with brain injuries.

Liambas left the OHL to pursue his education at the University of British Columbia while studying Human Kinetics. However, his career there was cut short after an incident with a University of Alberta player, where Liambas started a fight with a sucker punch that led to the Alberta player on the ice.

“Liambas goes right after Hunter and drops his gloves and hits him from the side and behind, then plants him into the ice,” said Thurston, who noted Hunter didn’t play the rest of the game and sat out a rematch Saturday.

Reports suggest the incident occurred as a retaliatory action after Alberta’s Eric Hunter tripped Liambas earlier in the shift. Liambas was suspended 2 games, but opted to leave University hockey before any further investigation and went to pursue his professional hockey career.

He would play 3 years in the ECHL, averaging over 100 Penalty minutes and 10 fights per season, before moving up to the AHL on a contract with the Nashville Predators to play for their affiliate in Milwaukee.

In his time with Nashville, it was more of the same as Liambas averaged more than 15 fights per season. In 2013-14, perhockeyfights.com, Liambas had 25 fights to go along with only 9 points. He plays a game similar to old-school enforcers, who are only on the ice to hit and fight with no sense of any actual offensive or defensive skill.

He has played in 8 NHL Games over the last 2 years, between Anaheim and Nashville, and has 3 fights to go with only 1 point. In fact, over his entire hockey career Liambas has never had more than 11 points in any single season..

Season Preview

To be completely honest, I’m not sure why Liambas is even listed on the NHL roster at this point. He does not appear to have a spot with the Minnesota Wild, Matt Hendricks is the same type of player, but more responsible offensive and defensively, and more experienced.

Liambas is an AHL player at best, or even as low as an ECHL fighter again at this point. The NHL is too fast and skilled for players like this to have a place anymore, and I agree with Ken Campbell in the article above that Liambas doesn’t deserve to be in the league.

Personally, the controvery from his past doesn’t even impact that decision for me. With Marcus Foligno, Jordan Greenway, and even Hendricks ushering in a new era of power forward that can double as an enforcer for the Minnesota Wild, the enforcers of the 90’s/00’s are a dying species.

It will take an extremely deep dive into the prospect pool to bring a player like this to a regular season NHL game. His value, as far as I’m concerned, is during the preseason. He’s the kind of player you run out there as a deterrent against any of your top players getting hurt in meaningless games.

Even that is a risky proposition though, as other teams will run their enforcers out against Liambas which may increase the risk of a big or dirty hit to a main roster player. He’s a risky signing, and should not see any NHL action this year (or potentially ever again). I don’t understand the what the Minnesota Wild were thinking.

Did you like the signing, Fansiders? Leave a comment if you think you can understand why the Minnesota Wild would sign a play like this.